Tag Archives: narcissism

Julian Assange… is he a narcissist? No, it’s a serious question. He is getting an awful attention but does he thrive on it? I’m sure he does. By the way, the hashtag in the title is deliberate (No! Really?), because Assange, the man, has been replaced with Assange the trending topic.

I’ve tried to steer clear of Assange (does that need a hashtag?) ever since he had international fame thrust upon him… or was it the other way around? But after a long internal dialogue, I wrote this blog about him, but I did so through gritted teeth. Even as I write this, my teeth are clenched tight.

Let’s be blunt, Assange is no friend of the left as The Mambo points out. Assange describes himself as libertarian or market libertarian. Well, which one is he? Personally, I think Assange is ideologically confused or playing dumb but either way I think it is pretty safe to say that he is neither a socialist, an anarcho-communist or a Spartacist. The word “libertarian” only means one thing to me these days and it’s usually associated with notions about night-watchman states and Ayn Rand.

But what about free speech? Well, what about it? No one really truly has free speech, especially in Britain, which has some of the most stringent defamation laws in the world. There isn’t even a law on the statute books that enshrines free speech. But did Assange and co really tell us things we didn’t already know? No and the information that was leaked was old; too old to be of any real value to an, erm, terrorist or übervillain.

Now to the allegations of rape, I don’t understand why the Swedish public prosecutor can’t drag his/her carcass across the North Sea to interview Assange. Indeed, they’ve already interviewed him once and subsequently released him. Only recently, a prosecutor interviewed a Serb murder suspect in his home country.

Rape often goes unreported or is otherwise not taken seriously by the police. Should the case get as far as the courtroom, defence barristers will work to discredit the testimony of the victim. That is not justice.

Given these factors, the allegations against Assange must be taken seriously, even if they seem to be eerily coincidental.

Finally, Assange’s former colleague at Wikileaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, set up OpenLeaks.net last year to make,

whistleblowing safer and more widespread. This will be done by providing dedicated and generally free services to whistleblowers and organizations interested in transparency. We will also create a Knowledge Base aiming to provide a comprehensive reference to all areas surrounding whistleblowing.

I saw the Blair interview last night. There he was in his expensive suit and the hands…THE HANDS! He kept doing that thing with his thumb…you know that really annoying thing that he does where he jabs the other person. He kept doing the ‘gate thing’ with his hands too. He even pretended to smash things with his fist when he was talking about “reforming public services” (always worry when politicians talk about ‘reforms’). The third thing that he said in the interview was “I mean, you know, look”. Classic Blair.

Aside from his range of hand gestures, we got the usual spiel from him: he didn’t regret the decision and he did what he had to do. He repeated the lie that the world is a “safer place without Saddam”. But the things that really stood out for me in this interview was his shallowness; this is not a man with any real depth and he proved that when he was talking about Northern Ireland. He apparently “bent the truth” in order to drive things forward. Is this a man we want as a Middle East negotiator? I don’t think so. Lying is a classic narcissistic behaviour. He also claimed to have cried tears for those Iraqi civilians who were killed by his desire to topple Saddam. Were these tears of a guilty man or was he just saying this in order to appear more human?

He looked like a man possessed at times, especially when he was talking about Iraq and his ‘might is right’ doctrine. My god, the zeal in the man’s eyes was frightening to behold. In another time and in another place, he could be a serial killer.

Towards the end of the interview he gave the most chilling performance yet. he talked of how it may be ‘necessary’ to ‘use military force ‘ to subdue Iran’s nuclear [weapons] programme. I do not want this man anywhere near a negotiating table; he’s demonstrated to me, beyond all reasonable doubt, that he’s only in it for himself. Blair is a warmonger who only cares about his place in history. Serial killers kill because, in their twisted minds, they believe themselves to be superior to others. They also wish to be famous – like Blair. The only difference is that most serial killers don’t get anywhere near the levers of power. Blair did.

As for his ‘drink problem’, this wasn’t a problem and he was certainly no George Brown when it came to drink: a whisky or a G&T before dinner and half a bottle of wine with dinner is hardly pushing the boat out. He said this in order to get our sympathy and for no other reason.

Blair also described himself as “progressive” but, in his hands, that word has been divested of all its former meaning. What is so progressive about continuing the neo-liberal policies of the Thatcher government? In some respects Britain is like Chile but without the military junta. The illusion of individual economic freedom freedom is used to mask the lack of social and political freedoms.

Blair’s place in history is assured but not for the reasons he imagines.